by Cora Sherlock | LifeNews.com | 9/23/14 12:32 PM

Speaking today in response to calls by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child to mark the 25th anniversary of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child I represent the Pro Life Campaign in saying human rights for children could not be achieved if they are denied the most basic human right of all, the right to life.

My remarks follow:

How can we hope to improve children’s rights if millions of children across the UN are denied the right to live at all?

The Committee’s call for the rights of all children, ‘including the most marginalised and vulnerable’ to be respected can only be taken seriously when the right to life of the unborn is protected.  What child is more vulnerable than an unborn baby? The UN cannot purport to support human rights unless it takes measures to encourage Member States to protect unborn children and their mothers.

The Convention on the Rights of the Child includes a provision that children have a right not to be discriminated against yet in most UN Member States unborn children are deliberately targeted and their lives ended.   Abortion regimes in many countries are utterly barbaric permitting abortion throughout the full nine months of pregnancy on certain grounds. We have seen how this results in children being discriminated against in the womb for their gender, and for reasons of disability.

At the UN General assembly on the 20th of November, the anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the United Nations Human Rights representatives must address abortion for what it is – a grievous infringement on children’s rights.

Today the UN has said that it aims to take stock of progress of children’s rights since 1989 and to examine challenges that face children’s rights.  It’s time the UN addressed the greatest human rights abuse of all – the denial of children’s right to be born.

If we are to really champion children’s rights, we must start with the most basic right of all, the right to life.